Took the plunge, bought Dark Souls...

What level range is the Moonlight Butterfly made for? Jesus, that was insultingly easy, so much so I'm wondering if my overlevelled-ness has broken Dark Souls for me. He fired a few beams at me (which I didn't dodge because I was too busy shooting him with my bow, and only seemed to do 25% to my health anyway) and then he landed. Switched to two-handing my Dark Knight Greatsword and he was dead in three hits.

Not sure where to head next, might check out the other Garden place just after where Havel was.

You probably got past the point i gave up, which was in the sewers.

Haven't seen the sewers yet, and I've no intention of giving up. The game is oddly compulsive, even though it's not as much fun as Dragon's Dogma.

the sewers is where the second bell is, i'm confused where you've gone because i killed the gargoyles then went to find the second bell yet you seem to be somewhere different.

I rang the first bell then went exploring. The garden area was just past the first blacksmith.

SimianWonder wrote:

I rang the first bell then went exploring. The garden area was just past the first blacksmith.

Was there a weird one armed freak there? I think i went that way to.

As I said the butterfly is by far the easiest boss in the game, I don't actually know anyone who hasn't beaten it on their first try.

By all means keep exploring as that's how this game is meant to be played, not to mention you might end up completing areas you'd otherwise have to return to later, but, in case you're wondering, the most immediate place you need to go to continue the story is through the locked door just before the dragon bridge. You should have gotten the basement key you need for it at some point between the bridge and the parish.

I'm just going to wander around, see where that takes me. I figure that if I'm twenty odd levels over the norm for this stage in the game odds are I should still be able to handle myself if I do venture somewhere meant for a little later in the game.

Pop quiz; I gave the divine ember to the blacksmith near the bonfire just by the entrance to the Darkroot Garden. I'm assuming he uses it to make something awesome so how long do I need to wait for him to do so, or do I need specific equipment to be strengthened?

Crap.

Found my way beck to Darkroot Basin, and came across a Hydra. Fucking thing spits multiple glowing projectiles that not only track but have a large splash damage radius. Even at lvl 43, I died in two hits. Might be the first really tough enemy I've fought in a while. Bring it on.

That was... unbalanced. At range, the things it spits are lethal, but once you're up close it's a pussycat. You can simply block all it's attacks with the shield, than one decent hit takes care of each head.

Odd. Now back in the undead Burg, going to find the door near the Dragon Bridge. Onwards and upwards!

I can see why everyone seems to have plat this game despite it apparently being 'hard'.

It's harder than probably 90% of other games, but it's simply about patience and perseverance and learning to put up with the odd cheap shot. It seems as though a few people like to treat Dark Souls as a "trophy" game, using its reputation as punishingly tough to boast about their own "B4DAZZ SK1LL$" or something like that.

The divine ember lets you upgrade weapons to divine once they're at +5 or +10, can't remember which. It would be a good idea to check out the wiki (the one on wikidot is better) to have a look at what exactly the different upgrades do.

From memory divine does holy damage scaled off your faith stat and prevents skeletons from being resurrected, probably not very useful for you at the moment.

Superbuu3 wrote:

I can see why everyone seems to have plat this game despite it apparently being 'hard'.

I've told you this before, it's not actually a very difficult game, it just punishes mistakes ruthlessly and requires a different attitude than most other games these days that just want to make the player feel 'awesome' by being too easy or forgiving.

Beat the Capra demon on first attempt, didn't really see what was even remotely challenging about him, though I did stumble across some weird cat monsters in a hidden area of the Darkroot Garden and while I beat one, I couldn't handle two at once. They were strong.

Capra demon is the one with the dogs right? I think he killed me the first time as i dodged right instead of left and basically got violated. That said you're horrendously overpowered sim you had 30 levels on me when i did that bit if not more.

Yeah, has two of the posion dogs with him. They attacked me first, so they were down by the time the demon got near me. You can block all his attacks with your shield, then quickly switch to two hand and get two or three good hits on him, though I guess that might depend on your available stamina and your poise. My poise is currently being boosted by a ring that essentially means very few attacks stagger me - I can take a hit without flinching, which makes healing easier and means I can (and do) trade blows with most creatures because I know I can take it and they can't.

Finally entered the unlockable gate in Darkroot Garden, and made my way to Sif, the giant wolf. He made mincemeat out of me. His range is huge, and while I can inflict large amoutns of damage on him, he's also much faster than I am and can break my guard with only two hits, forcing me to tank the next hit which does around 75% damage to my health. He's a tough SOB.

On a more successful note, I made my way back to the Asylum, the opening area of the game because someone had told me there were some nice goodies there. They neglected to mention the Stray Demon, who whupped me three times before I managed to flank him and strike him down.

Trying to block Sif isn't a good idea unless you have a shield with very high stability, higher stability = less stamina consumed on block. You should be able to beat him if you watch for his tells and dodge, though it might take a couple of tries to get them down as they're mostly related to how he holds Artorias' sword in his mouth.

Using Great Knight Shield + 4, so stabiity is around 80 I think. It's his big swing attack which does the damage - he spins on the spot doing a 720 degree swipe, the first hit taking my stamina, the second breaking guard and hitting me properly. I'm unable to dodge the second because I'm still staggered from the first block. While I can try and dodge the first hit, the punishment for getting it wrong is eating the hit anyway, so whether I block or dodge, I seem to take damage.

Again, my level is still high, around 45 I think, and the Black Knight Sword i've upgraded to +4, so I'm hitting him hard as well, I just cannot win a war of attrition with something much faster than me who hits equally hard.

Fuck Blighttown.

That is all.

You can buy Purple and Blooming Purple Moss Clumps to heal your poison/toxic status from the Female Undead Merchant in the sewers near the start of the Undead Burg.

Also the Spider Shield is extremely helpful if you got it in the Depths as it 100% resists any poison or toxic effect from attacks.

Got loads of the moss from the tree monsters in Darkroot garden, and the Spider Shield isn't 100% resistant - it slows the initial contraction rate of toxic or poison but only by around 20% or so. I beat it in any case and then scraped by against Quelaag. That was a tough fight.

On the PS3 version at least it resists the poison entirely as long as you block the attack, if you're actually getting hit it'll only reduce the effectiveness, yeah.

If you were talking about the swamp you just need to keep an eye out for the little islands, if you run back to a close one after you've aggroed an enemy you can fight in relative safety. I think I only got poisoned once or twice from the actual swamp, it was the blowdarts out of nowhere that gave me the most trouble.